


The Color of Your Eyes

by Okumen



Category: Drifters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate AU, eventually, is slowatus a term used in the fanfic world, updates are sort of slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2018-10-12 21:04:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10499445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Okumen/pseuds/Okumen
Summary: The eyes is the mirror of the soul, the color the key of the bond. Everyone knows that, they grow up with the tales of eyes meeting and the world gaining more color.Satsuma is a land of dark eyes. But in a land of dark eyes, Shimazu Toyohisa has found that it is impossible to find even a single person with eyes the true color of grass.





	1. Toyohisa I

**Author's Note:**

> Lately I have heen getting interested in the Soulmate AU trope, and well, I've sort of started on a few for different fandoms. I really shouldn't start another chapter fic while I still have a couple ones ongoing but I couldn't resist. Finally watching the US dub of Drifters didn't help in stopping me from doing this, either. Oh well? These things happen.
> 
> I have one more chapter finished, that I will post later on. I can't guarantee that they will be longer though the next chapter is a little bit longer than this one, at least in term of amount of words last I checked. I am terrible at titles and chapter titles so I'll just be going with who's the main characher of that specific chapter.
> 
> The rating is put as Mature at the time being, since I'm not sure how high it will rise. It might contain sexual content, I don't know yet, but it's far from imposible that it will. There will probably be violence in it, though, since it _is_ a Drifters fanfic, so I marked it as such.
> 
> I will also add character tags as more characters appears in the story.

Shimazu Toyohisa had, as long as he could remember, seen the world a little differently from everyone around him.

At first it was nothing that he had realized, but one day when his younger cousin Tadatsune made a comment about the way the early spring flowers had started to shoot so brightly out of the barren ground, and how pretty they were, Toyohisa had become confused because to him, the plants making their way up out of the dirt was not much different from the dirt itself. The color was the same, since the flowers had yet to bloom and show the colorful petals. His cousin, as well as his brothers and his sisters, had stared at him as if not understanding what he was trying to say when he voiced his confusion.

He realized then that the plants were a different color, not at all the same as the brown dirt, and soon after, he also realized that his siblings and his cousins did not see their hair colors as the same as he did. To him they all had the glossy black hair similar to a raven’s wing, but to them the color was a shining gray, like the cold ashes brushed out of the sword smith’s burnt-out fire.

Nobody else saw the world the same way as he did. They all saw a brilliant green where he saw a dull brown. And it was not only the plants, but also clothes, the stripes on his sisters’ temari, the tsukaito of his father’s katana.

He was wrong, he realized. There was something terribly wrong with him. With his eyes. The black that he saw, he was not supposed to see. Not yet. Why was he different? Why did the world seem different to him?

And then, he realized, as he remembered what he had never forgotten, only not thought upon very much; Satsuma was a land of dark eyes, so how was he supposed to, in the middle of all that dark, be able to find a person with eyes the true color of grass?

*****

Once he married, his wife grieved that she was not his soulmate. He grieved it too, because she was a girl he got along with well, a girl he would have enjoyed having as his soulmate. They had always gotten along well, ever since they met when they were children.

She had also not met her soulmate, once she came of marriageable age, but maybe she would, one day. How the two of them would react to that, he did not know.

She perceived the color black differently from the way he did, just like everybody else had or still did.

*****

The battles were a wonderful distraction, it made him feel truly like everyone else, like all the other Satsuma warriors fighting for the Shimazu clan. In battle, all men were warriors, their soulmate didn’t matter. If they had found each other or not didn’t matter.

Of course, he had heard stories of men who met their soulmate on the battlefield, there were tales of it passed down. One of his ancestors had met his soulmate on the battlefield, and brought him back to Satsuma with him, once the war had ended. Thus, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that his soulmate might be a man. He didn’t mind that, and honestly, his wife might prefer it. He just hoped that if it were a man, it was someone strong, a good warrior that the Shimazu could take pride in. But still, it was less common, possibly because if the men were enemies, they might cut each other down before they could look into each other’s eyes and have the world change with the new color that sprang into it.

So he delved into battle with vigour, because he loved to battle, it was the way he was raised, the way he would always live, and the way he was likely to die. Aiming to claim the heads of his enemies. Even if he didn’t have a soulmate by his side, he still had the thrill of battle, and that was, he decided as he grew older, enough for him. Everybody lived part of their lives lacking a color, some did so their whole lives. He would simply be one more among them.

Instead he would focus on warfare and cut more, more enemies’ heads from their bodies. It was the Satsuma way and he would always be a proud warrior of Satsuma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kind of Soulmate Identifier used in this story is that of a person being unable to see the color of their soulmate's eyes as the color it really is, until they meet their soulmate.
> 
> Toyohisa really was married, though I've sadly not been able to find the name of his wife. She was a relative of his, as she was the daughter of a Shimazu. He also had siblings, two brothers and three sisters.


	2. Butch I

The sky far above was ashen, the color right before the blush of dawn started to bleed into it. It was a color he saw far more often than others did. It was the same color as he saw his hair, even when nobody else did.

He never mentioned it to his parents, that things simply seemed… _off_ to him. Instead he observed, took in all the information that he could get hold of, to gain a clear image of what it was that nagged at the back of his mind. When his brothers and sisters spoke of the colors their gazes could not see as they were, he listened but said nothing. It was children’s talk, he said if they tried to involve him in their conversation. Only children got excited over trying to figure out what the person behind the missing color was like. When they would protest against being called children, he would say that as long as they were younger than him, they would be children in his eyes.

Robert Leroy Parker, Utah boy of faithful Mormon blood, knew that in the end, it didn’t matter if he found his soulmate or not. Black eyes, he learned that whoever she was had. Because his hair was supposed to be black, but it didn’t look that way to his eyes. People didn’t have black eyes in Circle Valley, though very dark eyes of some different color happened on some.

Nonetheless, he knew that once he was of an age, he would be made to marry some Mormon girl from the community, probably because it would benefit the family and the Church. A woman good for bearing children, if his Maw got any say in it. Which she would, he knew. If he got to choose he didn’t want to marry at all, but nobody around these areas cared about a boy’s or a girl’s preferences. Everything was for the Church and the Lord, and it didn’t matter if the two young ones getting married were soulmates or not. If somebody around these parts did manage to find and marry their soulmate by the time it was their turn to marry, those people could count themselves as very lucky.

Leroy managed to escape it though, by leaving before a marriage was decided upon. He was happy for that, though he was sure his family wasn’t. But they were unhappy about many of his life choices, so in the end, that was simply one of many problems they saw in him.

*****

Riding the Outlaw Trail enabled him to see a great deal more of the world, see a great deal more people. Even people who supposedly had black eyes. But none of them were the girl he was supposed to be with, since the colors of the world never changed.

Leroy Parker became George Cassidy, and then became Butch Cassidy, though he went by many other names besides those, and as the years went by and he still didn’t find the girl meant for him, he had to assume that by now she had married and moved on with her life, so he should too. Women didn’t necessarily bring good either way, and not marrying was not a loss in his opinion. But if he kept an eye out for women with that particular shade of gray in their eyes eyes, wondering if they in truth were black, he never told anyone, not even Elzy, despite the many years they had spent together on the trail.

The other men on the trail met their women, sometimes married them, sometimes left them behind. He saw enough of the trouble either caused, and didn’t want it for himself. Just because you were soulmates didn’t mean you would stay together forever, even though they carried a piece of each other with them for all eternity. Or so it was said, in the old, old stories. But to be frank, he had not been very interested in the first place. Curious, yes. The color he saw — or rather, couldn’t see — was different enough from those his siblings spoke of to make him wonder just what kind of a girl had coal black eyes. But it was nothing he actually desired for himself.

Being on the trail was dangerous, living in their beloved West was dangerous. It wouldn’t do to bring families on it, though some did, sometimes. It never ended well.

*****

He blew white smoke toward the sky, the color of ashes making him wonder again. Making him wonder if the girl was even out there somewhere. It made him sentimental, remembering the days he did the same at home, early in the mornings, watching the winter breath paint a cloud in the American sky. He wondered if perhaps it was an injun girl, from a tribe somewhere he had not visited yet, a tribe he never would visit, so long as he was forced to hide so far from where he considered home. Wondered if she was already dead, even.

Even on mornings before a robbery he sometimes started to think of it. His life was probably nearing an end, he always lived by that thought, that today might be his last day and tomorrow might come without him. Meeting yet another sunrise was something he welcomed, but rise too early and reminders would present themselves.

At least he didn’t think about it in the middle of the robberies, not on trains and not in banks, and not while fleeing posses or hiding among the cliffs or trees. The Trail was a freedom he never would have had, had he stayed on with his family. No soulmate was a freedom, too. He didn’t need one. The horses, the guns and smokes — and, before South America, his Wild Bunch — was all that he needed, and nothing but death (or a prison cell) could, or would, take his freedom from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contrary to popular belief, Sundance was not Butch's best friend, it was actually Elzy Lay, who founded the Wild Bunch together with Butch.


	3. Butch II

Ending up in a different world while half riddled with bullets had not been a very enjoyable experience. But getting totally filled with lead and dying in Bolivia would be even less enjoyable so he figured the only thing they could do was get used to it and continue on with their lives, taking it one day at a time as they always had.

The first period of time back then had been more than rough, digging bullets out of each other and cauterizing each other's wounds with red-hot knife blades had been excruciating. Each wound took time, and they had feared the other a goner several times because of it. Passing out from the pain was temporary bliss for one party, constant fear for the other. They did not want to lose each other when in such unfamiliar waters, and definitely not so soon.

Living on the Trail was always dangerous, it was something they had been well aware of when setting out on it, many years ago, but this world was a completely different type of danger, putting them between a proverbial devil and equally proverbial deep sea. Before the Octobrists found them, it was a battle between them and their wounds, one they eventually headed for victory in, they thought, and after it was a war they never asked to be dragged into, with no end in sight. Butch was grateful for the additional treatment that they received, and he felt he owed them for that. He always repaid his debts and he would continue to do so. But participating in a war that wasn't theirs was just ridiculous.

Haruakira and his organization might have magic, and other things unfamiliar to the two members of the Bunch, but he had to wonder if it really was worth it. He loved adventure and living on the edge but he preferred it to be on an edge that he chose, not one that was shoved into his face one afternoon when he was failing to catch fish in the river.

Maybe it was better than going around wondering, unable to get any answer because of the language barrier. Though they had gotten around language barriers in the past, given some time. At least there was something to actually do, working with the Octobrists, they couldn’t very well go back to the old life they had lived with the lack of knowledge that they had, or in such an impoverished area as the one they had ended up in.

*****

“They ain’t on our tail no more, should we turn an’ look for him?” It would be risky of course, it wasn’t that long since they had managed to shake the odd posse made up of the weirdest pursuers they had ever seen, but Sundance still posed the question.  
“I will send out my subordinates to search,” Haruakira said, perhaps to reassure them. “for now we need to go to the castle ruins and meet the Drifters there.”  
“You ain’t supposed’a leave no brother behind for the enemy,” Butch said over his shoulder, only half an eye on the team of horses in front of the carriage. The enemy was usually the law, and brothers were usually other outlaws, the code that of those running the outlaw trail would follow, and Butch was one of those who found it the most important, as a very loyal person. Scipio may not be wounded or a brother, but that didn’t matter.  
Sundance, sitting in the wagon behind the driver’s seat, was in agreement with his friend. “Allies are more right than brothers,” he said, voicing Butch’s brief thought “but it’s of the code we live by.”  
“We don’t have the time now!” Haruakira proclaimed. Hannibal said nothing, meanwhile, staring out in the distance, silently muttering words blown off by the wind into the direction which they had come from. The two outlaws glared at the mage from beneath hat and hood, and Butch pulled the reins to stop the horses. They blew heavy air through their nostrils, sides heaving from the exertion of the escape.

“So we’ll have to risk the enemy to get holt a’him whiles we escape out’a harms way, is what you say?” The driver scowled, loosening his grip on the reins almost entirely and sat one leg in the cart, the other on the box seat. “If we’ve been given a job, we intend’a be finishin’ it properly. We ain’t gonna be able to do that with only one of them old timers here.”  
The mage seemed to grow more and more frustrated with the stubbornness of the middle-aged men set in their ways that he was faced with. “This is no time to argue. Please get the horses going again, Cassidy.”  
“They ain’t movin’ ‘less I want ‘em to.” There was a reason why he was the one driving the team—beyond the fact that Sundance was the better one with a gun—and that was that nobody beat Butch in handling horses. The horses wouldn’t budge an inch if he didn’t want them to, no matter what anyone else might try.

Haruakira let out the most frustrated sigh that they had ever heard him let out during the short period of time that they had known him. “We will return, and find him once we have taken Hannibal to safety,” he finally said, sounding as if he was relenting to their wishes while he in truth wasn’t relenting at all. “I was the one who asked you to do this in the first place, can’t you compromise, and allow me to alter it a little bit? It’s not that big of a change, and this really need to take priority.” He continued his spiel, not masking his bull shit as a compromise very well. Butch had heard much more convincing lies over the years. The man clearly had his convictions, but Butch held his as well, had since he was a young boy, as he had held his morals and codes. What Haruakira called a compromise was not a compromise at all and what he was trying to convince them with was nothing but an attempt at pretty words.

Sundance tapped Butch’s leg without making any notice of it, pulling his attention to him, and sent him a look and an expression the others wouldn’t know to read. Butch returned the unsaid words, the quiet looks between them forming a conversation, while Haruakira continued to talk (he should just save his breath for breathing, instead of talking so much as he seemed to like to do) and eventually Butch cut him off. “Pshaw. Fine. We’ll be doin’ it your way this time. But we ain’t goin’ with your ways easily iffen you go a’changin’ yer mind so quick again, tenderfoot.”

Though confused at the last word, Haruakira seemed pleased to have won; _this time_. They did owe him and his organization, but they didn’t owe him their allegiance or to change their principles or codes. They owed that to no one. The problem was that they had too few options to be able to cut on the Octobrists like this, and not even getting one old man to the intended destination would leave a sour taste in Butch’s mouth.

With annoyance boiling under a serious expression, Butch turned back to the horses, their ears prickling, alert to the attention and understanding that they were not the ones he was irritated with, and they easily fell into a quick trot at the reins. Under his hand they would willingly run forever if they had to, with much more vigor and more willing than under any other’s. And the sooner they reached those so called ‘castle ruins’ the better for it; then they could head back and search for Scipio, and finally finish their job. Then they would decide how to go about the future, on their own terms.


	4. Toyohisa II

The color of the trampled dirt road seeped its color onto the grass, same as it always had. In this world, too, he was still wrong. But as he had at home, when he was training or participating in a battle, he had his hands full. His mind, too. Being in a different world was really weird, but he was going to do what he always had, the way he had been taught.

People being dragged to this world didn’t make any sense. Fighting, on the other hand, did. He would fight for what he wanted to fight for, and he would take heads as he did. As any warrior from Satsuma would.

He was still dripping water as he left the well and the woman in it, and he passed his gaze across the strangers and their cart. A strange piece of metal gleamed in the moonlight from in the cart, but he only briefly took notice of it, because something else happened then.

It was as if a shock was reverberating through his entire body, all the way to the marrow of his bones. It reminded him a little of when he was still a child, not yet able to beat the bigger boys in a sparring match and they had knocked the air out of him and sent him tumbling through the dirt or across the floor of the training hall.

And in front of his eyes, the world suddenly shifted. He noticed it as his attention was called upon by Nobu, and his head turned from the strangers in the cart to the old fallen demon king, and the man with the Japanese face wearing foreign clothing. The background, the trees and the darkness, they all looked different from usual. The gray in the dirt-and-grass hill rising under the trees and the castle, a color he had seen every evening for thirty years was wrong. Shifted, a lighter, different shade. The leaves contrasted more than usual from the nightly shade of the bark on the tree trunks and branches, they became further apart.

But he wasn’t allowed to be distracted by the odd sensation or the change to his vision for long. The newly arrived Japanese man whom Nobu was so excited to meet — though Toyohisa didn’t understand why at all — demanded attention with his disbelieving expression. So he brought him, Nobu and Olmine to the well, only to end up more determined than ever to stay true to the way he was raised, and to the beliefs he had been taught. Ends or not, a woman was a woman and he was not going to kill any woman, not now, not ever. Nothing that any man in any funny hat said would convince him otherwise.

*****

It was easy to tell that the man Nobu called Haruaki wasn’t it. His eyes were a shade not all that familiar in eyes, but one he knew from clothing and sheets. They were near white, as pale as they were. Toyohisa felt like it would have been a bad match anyway, because a man who demanded you kill women lacked a certain amount of honor, at least in Toyohisa’s opinion. So it was good that Haruaki wasn't his soulmate.

The old man wasn’t it either, but nothing would have come from that anyway. That much was obvious, as the man wasn’t really present. So it was one of the two men that were left, who had been on the cart and were dressed pretty oddly. Not as oddly as Haruaki, but oddly enough.

*****

After a fire had been lit and the old man helped from the cart, and while food was cooking over the fire, Toyohisa joined them by it. They had been talking, but Toyohisa’s arrival interrupted the flow of their conversation, though both men didn’t stop cleaning their weapons.

In the dark, it was a bit hard to see colors. Everything turned into different shades of gray. You could tell more easily in the light of a fire, though, and Toyohisa needed to know who it belonged to. That color. It was clearly one of these men who had appeared in the late evening. It had to be connected to the shock that he felt running through him earlier.

He squatted in front of the light-haired, tall one, and pushed his face up close to his. Startled, the man stared back at him. "Uh... Somethin’ wrong, pal?" he asked. Toyohisa said nothing, only squinted further. _Blue,_ he thought. Then he got up, and moved to do the same to the man with the dark, messy hair. The shade was different. Like the trees, and the grass visible in the fire light. Different from any other color he had ever known.

His eyes were a startling color. That unfamiliar one, that Toyohisa had not seen before today. A color darkened by the night and dyed by the fire. Shining bright, youthful and warm, despite the expression on his face. Clear and unclouded, holding determination and a great level of wildness. Like a man who knew how to lead people, and also knew how to be kind to them.

“Yew’re it,” Toyohisa realized. It had to be, no question about it. He had not been sure if getting flung to this world had been fate, but now he was certain. It was definitely fate that brought him to this place, and the man in front of him, too.

The man’s face finally took on a startled expression. “I’m what?”

“Yew're my soulmate.”

The man was silent for a few moments, the only sound heard being a startled noise made by the other of the two strangers, then he cleared his throat, and a grin that didn’t entirely reach his eyes spread on his face. It wasn’t a face of lies. Just a face that wasn’t in tune with what fate had decided. “You seem like a decent feller an’ all, but I ain’t really much of any kind’a soulmate make, no matterin’ what ya might think or not. You sure you ain’t gone mistaken me for someone else?”

His words were round but had a certain sharpness to them, without cutting or alarm, his voice carrying a slight burring sound in it. The way he spoke made his accent entirely unfamiliar to Toyohisa. His face was sharper than he was accustomed to and though it wasn't as pale as the elves skin he was lighter than Toyohisa and Nobunaga and Yoichi, a more pink hue to it than theirs, though it was worn by the sun. His eyes were sharper. And his eyes were that color. That bright color. _Green._ There was no question about it. This man was definitely Toyohisa’s soulmate.

And he was also definitely not from Japan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The very first sentence of this chapter is actually one of the first lines I wrote for this story. That and some other things from chapter 1. Then this AU developed from there.


	5. Toyohisa III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Publication date can't be in the future," it says. Even though it _is_ the third in Sweden. (｡•́︿•̀｡) AO3's timezone is different from mine, I guess.
> 
> Two chapters in one night because chapter 4 was unnecessarily delayed. I'm going to bed now because it's one in the morning.

_But does he still know Japanese?_ He wondered that, and was about to ask it. He didn’t get the chance though.

Because he had not been paying attention as his mind raced, Toyohisa startled a little as the man sitting in front of him rose, the only sound being the rustle of the cloth he had previously worn around his neck, the plain fabric that had draped around his shoulders, and the sound of metal against leather as he slid his gun back into its scabbard at his leg. The man picked up the other gun from the ground, replacing it as well, and ultimately ended up towering above Toyohisa, who was still sitting crouched on the ground. The man turned toward the other, as the second weapon slid into place with a practiced motion. “I’m gonna go look in on the horses,” he said. “Godspeed t’you, boss,” the man still on the ground said, and Toyohisa saw a frown turn toward the other stranger. “What’s that supposed’a mean?” Toyohisa saw the other shrug through the corner of his eye, but kept his attention on the one who was leaving. “Nothin’ at all,” the man on the ground said, and the one in front of him sighed, threw a glance toward Toyohisa — though he couldn’t read what it meant — and turned with the sound of stones crunching and rubbing together under the soles of his boots. The exchange was quick, leaving no room for Toyohisa to put in a single word.

“Leave it, fer now.”

Toyohisa, who had been about to get up and follow the retreating man, turned his gaze toward the man sitting by the fire. The man suddenly looked amused, though Toyohisa didn’t understand why. “Y’look like an owl, y’know.”

“What?” Toyohisa turned toward him more properly, rising to his full length with the motion. “I don’ look like an owl.” The corners of the man’s mouth quirked slightly upwards, and he nodded to the spot where his companion had been sitting not even a minute ago. The cloak still lay there, discarded by the fire. “It means yer eyes’re round as a owl’s,” the man explained. “Have a sit, would ya?”

A few moments passed, as Toyohisa looked after the man who had already vanished out of sight, but he eventually sat down by the rumpled pile of fabric. It was dirty and covered in dust. “I wanted to talk to him, why’re yew stoppin’ me?” Toyohisa asked. “Butch ain’t all fancying the whole idea of soulmates. I don’t know all’a them details on it though. Maybe because it’s been takin’ ‘til now or because a lotta people on the owlhoot get into mighty trouble because of this whole soulmate business. There’s just as many who marry their soulmate as them who don’t, but most in the kind’a community he grew up in don’t. He ain’t the type t’be bitter but he also ain’t the type to never be unaffected by the injustice he sees since he likes people. And we’ve seen a lot o’that o’er the years as passed.”

The man fell silent, and Toyohisa’s face had developed a confused scowl. The fire crackled, making a hissing noise once in a while, when fat from the bird dripped into its flames. It was the only sound in the night for a while, only mixed with the sound of an owl’s hoot. There was a lot of owl talk going on, did this man like owls or something? But more importantly, he had even more questions than before, now. “What’s it that yew‘ve seen?” he asked, watching the man.

He rubbed a hand over his face, running his fingers over his mustache in silence. “Misfortune an’ sufferin’. An’ a group’a ne’er-do-well’s ain’t gonna fix it, no matterin’ iffen the leader’s a mighty clever one.” Toyohisa’s scowl only deepened. “That doesn’ explain anythin’, an’ who’s the leader yew’re talkin’ about?” The other man’s eyebrows raised, and that amused look reappeared on his face, and he nodded toward the direction his companion had gone. “That’d be yer dear soulmate back there,” he said.

Toyohisa blinked in surprise, momentarily stunned into silence. “Really? I saw somethin’ like’t in his eyes but I didn’t know he’s an actual leader of somethin’. Of what?” The amused expression remained on the man’s face, but his voice held a hint of a fond tone, as if he had had a lot of good times with the group Toyohisa’s soulmate was the leader of. “The Wild Bunch, we’re called. There’re other names for us as well but that’s the one most people back home know the best. Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch was decent famous back then.”

 _Back when?_ “Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch?” Toyohisa had never heard of it before. But on the other hand, they were from another country, though he didn’t know how far from Japan that country was located. “Oi, the hell’re yew laughin’ at?!”

Toyohisa felt that his outburst was justified, because the man had snorted and chuckled, covering his mouth with a hand, though it did nothing to cover the sound of his amusement. Was he mocking him? What the hell? “Sorry, kiddo, it’s just that yer pronunciation’s mighty funny. But you’ll get the hang’a it, if you practice. You go ahead an’ tell us if we get anythin’ wrong in turn.” Toyohisa huffed in annoyance. “I would do that anyway,” he assured him. “So he’s Butch Cassidy, then who’re yew?” Although they had already done introductions earlier, Toyohisa had not been very focused on learning new names at the time.

“Just call him Butch, you don’ need’a use the full name. An’ I’m called the Sundance Kid. Pleasure t’be makin’ yer acquaintance, samurai. Jus’ call me Sundance. Toyohisa, was it?” Toyohisa frowned again, though his expression had started to relax. Sundance Kid was a weird name. “ _Toyohisa,_ ” he corrected, not asking about this man’s weird name for now. He had more important things to ask.

“What sort’a community were yew talkin’ about?” Toyohisa asked, finally getting to one of the other things he had wondered about from the moment Sundance mentioned it. “The Mormon community,” Sundance said. “I ain’t got much knowin’ about it, because I ain’t Mormon, but it’s a branch off’a Christianity, an’ it’s pretty strict in its ways, far as I know. They ain’t much supportive of anyone goin’ off doin’ their own thing, everything’s for the church and Jesus, like gettin’ married early and havin’ lots of kids. He left because that kind’a life wasn’t a’suitin’ him. I know that much. And bein’ a farmer an’ raisin’ broods of kids ain’t anythin’ much I can see him do. He’s way too free-spirited for that. Like a wild horse, perhaps.” The last was added with a thoughtful sound, and Sundance moved to get the bird off of the fire so it wouldn’t char. He got up, muttered something about being right back, and wandered off with the bird still skewered on its stick in the same direction Butch had previously gone. Toyohisa remained by the fire, staring into the flickering flames as his mind wandered, both across what he had just been told, and toward the past.

Overall, Toyohisa didn’t get what sort of community this “Mormon” community was, but he did gather that it was something completely different from Butch’s personality.

He had seen that before. He had had a close friend when he was young, the son of one of his father’s vassals the same age as him, who didn’t like fighting at all, despite being from Satsuma. Despite having the honor of training in the same school, under the same teacher, as Toyohisa and the other Shimazu sons. The boy had, when they were fifteen and had just come out of their first battle, disappeared, leaving behind a letter that explained that the life of a samurai really wasn’t for him, and that as long as he stayed in Satsuma he, no matter how much he loved the place where he was born and raised, would not be able to live life the way that he wanted. Toyohisa had been upset, but not as upset as his friend’s father, who right from the start had not seen how the boy had not been suited for fighting wars. He wasn’t a coward though, Toyohisa’s friend. Toyohisa had seen him on that battlefield, and he could fight. He just didn’t want to.

Toyohisa had not seen him since, nor heard from him, but his friend’s father had not been able to find him, and he was good at surviving, so he was probably doing just fine, far away from the land that they all had loved since the moment they were born.

So he understood, that sometimes, a person was not meant to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors. And farming had never appealed to Toyohisa either, so he could definitely understand that.

He was similar to a wild horse though? That sounded much more interesting than a plain farmer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finding information on Toyohisa is pretty difficult. It's definitely harder than finding information on Butch. (But then I have eight books on Butch with several more on my to-buy list so...yeah...) The story about Toyo's friend is completely made up but I do have a little bit of information that will be used later on in the story.
> 
> Figuring out the way the characters talk is pretty tricky too, and I'll probably go back and edit the outlaws and Toyo's lines at some point.


	6. Butch III

_You’re my soulmate._ That was what the man had said. (Well, more or less. He had a peculiar accent that he didn’t recognize, despite the many places he had been.)

Butch had not needed the confirmation. He had known nearly instantly, almost as soon as he felt like he had been shot the same way as in San Vicente, almost as soon as the shifting in his surroundings had happened. The shadows grew thicker, darker. Everything lost the murky grey hue it had always held in the night. It was pretty disorienting, but he had already gotten more or less used to it. Adapting wasn’t that hard, in the end. It was something you needed to be quick at, in many situations.

After retreating from the campfire in an uncomfortable hurry, and after finishing looking over the horses, making sure they had something to eat and drink near and were tied down properly so they wouldn’t run off during the night, he had wandered a little further away. He was crouched in a small stream that they had found not too far from the Japanese Drifter’s hideout, just a little bit upstreams from the resting horses. Trying to wash his face clean of travel dirt and his mind of annoyance and confusion.

He swore in his mind, a mixture of a curse and a prayer, and he splashed more water from the stream into his face, washing more travel dust from his skin, and brushed back damp bangs out of his face. They curled more than usual due to the drops of water stuck in it, and water trailed down inside the collar of his shirt, dampening the fabric and leaving chilly trails down his skin. Probably leaving trails in the dirt on his neck, too. He rubbed at his shoulder with a wet hand. The water running around his bare ankles was cold, but not as cold as melting snow water from a mountain top. The chill bit a little, but it was helpful, in a way.

This was exactly why he didn’t want to deal in meeting his soulmate. Or, no, not exactly. But it proved what he had thought for a long part of his life; that this soulmates business caused trouble. If he had not been … bound … to the samurai, then maybe...

“Robert,” he heard a voice behind him, and he sighed, turning in the stream to face Sundance. He had to be careful so he didn’t slip on any slimy stones at the bottom. At least the one word cut off his train of thought. “Harry,” he acknowledged, but he said nothing else. Sundance frowned, because Butch was pretty good at talking. He was friendly, it was one of the reasons why even people he robbed often liked him as a person. Him not talking about trivial things was weird. “He seems like an interestin’ kid,” Sundance finally said, as he offered the stick they had used as a spit to roast the bird to Butch.

Butch stepped out of the water, wet feet leaving short-lived tracks in the grass. “Yeah, I knowed it from the start. The look in his eyes ‘s tellin’.” He pulled a switchblade from one of the pockets of his pants, and flipped up a blade so he could cut off pieces of the bird’s meat for the two of them. “Honest an’ straight-forward.” Sundance was quiet, watching him. “Far diff’rent from an ol’ badman like me. _Too_ diff’rent.”

Sundance shook his head, a long-suffering sigh passing his parted lips and working teeth as he chewed on the meat. “Butch, you ain’t actin’ as old as you are, an’ bein’ badmen, you regretted it much?” Butch shook his head. “No, it’s the path that called me once I was young,” he said. “But we ain’t got much worth, people like us. Iffen we go draw our last breath by gun or knife, the world ain’t gonna mourn us, nor’s it gonna change.” He nudged one of his boots with his toes. Rubbed the sole of his foot in the grass. He carved a bigger chunk of meat from the bird, then returned to the stream, rubbing the blade against the mud as he tore the meat with his teeth. “Samurai ain’t no outlaws, Harry,” he said. He shoved the last of the chicken piece in his mouth and as he chewed he finished cleaning off the switchblade.

“It’s not like we know all much ‘bout them,” Sundance pointed out while Butch hooked a foot under his jacket and pulled it up so he could grab it. “Yeah,” he murmured, as he wiped the blade dry against the inside of the jacket. “But from what we heard’a them from them Japanese painted cats in south California, they ain’t nothin’ like us.” He folded up the knife, returned it to his pocket, and slipped into the jacket. “They were nobility soldiers fightin’ for some lord or other, right? Honorable an’ earnest an’ loyal.”

“He seems like a good lad but he’s probably nobility that inherited his position,” Sundance said. Butch looked up from the laces of his boots. “That what you’re athinkin’, ain’t it?”

“Ya know me well,” Butch said as he turned his gaze back to his bootlaces. “Course I do,” Sundance sighed. “We’ve knowed each other for years. You know me well too. But as your friend an’ brother, Robert, I’m thinkin’ ya should give the lad a chance, see iffen he’re anyin’ like the powerful people back home. Because I think he genuinely is a good lad, there ain’t nothin’ foul in his eyes.”

Butch chuckled shortly, as he finished tying the last bow on the lace. “There’s foul things’n these old bones, though.” What the younger outlaw was saying rang true, but it wasn’t the only reason why Butch was unhappy about this whole thing.

With a scowl on his face Sundance stepped up to him, letting what was left of the bird dangle by his side, and he shoved a knee and leg into Butch’s arm. Butch let out a surprised grunt, reflexively catching himself with his palms against the ground. “Harry?”

“It ain’t like you,” Sundance said. “to be like this, gloomy-like. Just ignore that he’s appearin’ t’ be yer soulmate for now. Just get’a know him first, iffen we breathe to see opportunity for it. Makin’ friends, gettin’ them to like you, that’s somethin’ you been good at long as I knowed you. An’ iffen you end up likin’ him enough to acknowledge that he’s your soulmate then you can deal with them religious things you’re carryin’ with ya then.” He took a breath, thumbing the brim of his hat out of his forehead. “But it ain’t as if it’s new, right? That a man’s soulmate might be a man.”

Butch sighed, and he looked up at the dark, dark sky. He could see a couple of stars up there, twinkling down at them. “It ain’t,” he agreed. He had met more men being with another man than any God fearing man or woman would ever acknowledge. But knowing they were around, both on the trail, at the mines, in the cities and towns, didn’t change the fact that any Saint would condemn it. It wasn’t anything that was spoken of in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saint. And if it were, what they spoke of was sin and eternal condemnation.

But Sundance was right.

It wasn’t as if he ever focused on the future. Not since he ended up following the call of the Owlhoot, back when he was young. It was over half a lifetime ago now, but he was too old to mourn the choices he didn’t make in the past, or regret the choices he did make. Living to see another day had nothing to do with the Lord’s Will, it all was pure luck.

He pushed himself back up on his feet. “Yeah.” He sighed, running a hand through damp hair. “Why’m I gonna change the way I live now, when nothin’ else made me change it?” With a drawn-out sound he stretched, much like a cat did, and then dropped his hands and pushed them into the pockets of his jacket. “I might get’a know the kid, I might not. No tomorrow for the Wild Bunch. So what iffen it’s in another world.” He grinned at his friend. “Right?”

Sundance sighed, shaking his head. But a slight smile of relief had made its way into his eyes, onto his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote parts of this conversation several times. Conversations is not my strong suit, bothi n real life (particularly in real life) and in fiction.
> 
> Oh, and Robert is Butch while Harry is Sundance. It's their real names.


	7. Butch IV

The boards of the carriage were hard and cold, but sleeping on the ground here was too ridiculous to even try, what with how uneven the ground was. There was the option of sleeping inside as well, but they had slept outside for so long by then that the both of them felt a little like caged animals indoors.

Butch turned over in the bedroll, felt his shoulder bump into a crate, and raised a hand to rub his eyes clear of sleep dust. Running his hand over his face he felt that he needed to shave, and rubbing at his hair he looked up at the sky. Dark curls was visible at the edges of his vision, and he tugged at his bangs. In silence, he stared at the curl, a shadow against the blushing morning sky. Black wasn’t that different from the gray, really. Seeing black was going to make it a little harder to see in the dark, he knew. But it was just deeper, thicker, than gray was. Adapting quickly was one of his strong points, though nearly 43 years of never being entirely blind in the night suddenly changing from the gaze of another was still something that would take some practice.

He let go of the lock of hair, and rubbed his hand over his eyes again. When he suddenly heard the sound of stones moving underfoot though, he froze, and his other hand still hidden in his bedroll carefully reached for his gun. Another sound, a twig snapping, and Butch quickly sat up, gun drawn.

“I just wanted to see if yew were awake,” Toyohisa said, his surprised eyes staring into Butch’s. Butch sighed, lowered the gun and returned it to its scabbard.

“Son, ya can’t just go creepin’ up’n folk like that,” he said, and he dropped back down on his back and released the tension that had settled in his shoulders. His eyes never left the samurai.

“Sorry,” the other man said. One of his hands rested on the edge of the carriage, and he leaned against it. He wasn’t in all of what he was wearing, Butch noted as he watched him. The red bits and the armor bits were missing. “Why’re yew calling me that?”

“It’s a figure’a speech, ‘s why.” He crossed his arms over his chest, pulled a leg up, shifted to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “It ain’t like i’m implyin’ you’re my son. It’s a way’a callin’ people, nothin’ else.” Butch saw the frown of confusion on Toyoshisa’s face, and he wondered how it actually translated to Japanese.

“You lookin’ for somethin’, are ya?” he finally asked, to distract the man. Why was he nosing around this early? It wasn’t time for the rooster to cry yet, so it must be something important. If it was about the soulmate deal though, Butch wasn’t ready to talk about that yet. He had way too many things about that to process before he could talk to him about it.

Toyohisa nodded, and leaned a little closer still, part of his body leaning over the wood. There was an intense look in his eyes, and it made Butch wonder what kind of serious thing it was that he wanted. “Do yew speak Japanese?”

“Um?” Butch blinked a few times, then shook his head. “No.” He pushed himself up, so they got to a closer eye level. “D’you speak English?” he asked in return. It wasn’t an important point to him, they had the translation charms from the Octobrists, and he had already learned Spanish at a not-so-young age.

“What?”

The look on Toyohisa’s face had already given him the answer to the question, he looked as if he had never even heard of English, which he might actually not have. “I’ll be a’takin’ that as a no,” he said. “That important?”

Toyohisa was surprisingly silent for a few moments, but then he shook his head. “No.” There was a look on his face that told Butch differently though. The man was clearly not a guy who had a good poker face. The brief thought that Sundance should teach him cards passed through his mind. Butch wasn’t sure if he should question him though. He wasn’t one from the owlhoot, so the unwritten rule to not pry didn’t really apply to him. But on the other hand the way he reacted was unusual. As unusual as Butch could tell, at least. He hardly knew the guy, after all, so he couldn’t know for sure.

The man turned though, that look still on his face, and wandered off in the direction of the ruins. Butch watched him go, a frown of his own on his face.

“That was weird,” he mumbled. A few moments later he freed himself of the bedroll, and started to roll it up. He didn’t like seeing people troubled, but he didn’t know what was on the kid’s mind, so there wasn’t anything he could do. And if he had stuff to work through too, then that would mean that Butch had some time to think through his own things for a while before Toyohisa sought him out in those regards again.

Packing away the bedroll, he walked across the small space of the carriage to his partner.

He kicked Sundance in the leg, and the other man grunted. “‘t’s rude’a wake people’n that way, boss,” he grumbled. “It ain’t like ya were asleep fer real,” Butch commented. He continued to the edge of the carriage, picked up a bucket from the corner, and jumped down to the ground. “You’re enjoyin’ this too much, Harry.”

Sundance sat up, his short blond hair sticking every-which-way, the way it only did before he had had the time to run a comb through it. Which he usually did pretty quickly after getting up each morning. The man liked to look good, kept his hair straightened out and his mustache trimmed the way he liked it. Butch ran a hand across his face again, rubbed his cheek and felt the stubble against his skin. He preferred to keep his face clean-shaven. Unlike Sundance, who looked good with facial hair, Butch looked ridiculous with a beard, he was probably never going to be able to pull that off. With Sundance though, the ladies seemed to fancy him much more when he had that mustache. And Sundance enjoyed their attention.

“You did good’n your own, Robert,” he said. “That’s all, really.”

Butch raised an eyebrow at him.”Really,” he repeated, his voice full of doubt. He rested the hand grasping the bucket handle against his shoulder so the bucket rested against the back of it. “Oh yes, the esteemed Sundance Kid ne’er done laughed at ‘nother man’s expense.” Sundance snorted. “That’s right,” he said. A few moments of silence passed as they watched each other, then a grin made its way on Sundance’s face, closely followed by one cracking Butch’s. Quiet laughter shook their shoulders, and Butch shook his head. “Watch it or I kick ya harder next time, pard,” he said with his grin still in place, knocking his knuckles against the board beside him. “I’m goin’ fetchin’ some water, you find some beans or somethin’.”

“Awright,” Sundance rubbed a shoulder, tensed and relaxed to get the stiffness out of them. “Then I’m gonna sleep some more.”

“Harry,” Butch narrowed his eyes. It wasn’t a serious look though, only a fake one. “you ain’t doin’ that right now. We gotta see iffen we can stock up’n some provisions an’ ask ‘em elves iffen they have any maps ‘round the area. We got things t’ do.” Sundance grinned back at him in amusement. Then he waved a dismissing hand at him without another word. Butch snorted, shook his head with a corner of his mouth quirked up, and he turned, heading for the well.


	8. Toyohisa IV

Toyohisa was in a bind. He had taken this too lightly, he realized. He had come to know that his soulmate wouldn’t simply accept the situation—which, honestly, only made him more curious about _why_ he seemed so negative about the soulmate system—but that it would take some time for him to accept it. Alright, he could handle that, he could give him some space and time, and then they could talk about it again, and maybe he would be more open to the idea once he had thought it through by himself.

But then this new information came to light because Toyohisa had pried, and now he was in a bind and had a bit of a problem.

A foreigner who didn't speak Japanese! Sure, it sounded as if he spoke Japanese, but if he actually didn’t it must be like it was with the elves, that one of those charms from that organization made it sound like Japanese. They could understand each other perfectly that way. Not perfectly, maybe, he said some strange things that made Toyohisa very confused. But the fact remained that his soulmate was a foreigner who didn't speak Japanese. So he was sort of in trouble. Not in trouble, but in trouble. He couldn’t even explain it well to himself.

He didn’t acknowledge Yoichi when he came up to him, but Yoichi decided to not care that Toyohisa wasn’t reacting to his presence. “Toyohisa-dono, what are you making such a difficult face for?” Toyohisa turned his scowl up toward his fellow countryman, and grunted when Yoichi sat down beside him.

“Those foreigners don’t speak our language,” he told him. Yoichi’s mouth turned, slanting into an amused curve, but he also looked a little confused. “Ooh, you did say that anyone who didn’t speak our language should die. So, what about it?” Toyohisa’s scowl deepened, because there was an obvious problem that should be obvious to Yoichi as well, beyond what Toyohisa had said when he was new to this strange world. “Don’t yew get it!” Toyohisa slammed a hand against the ground. “My soulmate is more barbaric than I thought!”   
“They and their people probably consider us barbarians too,” Yoichi pointed out. As if it were that easy. Then he tilted his head to the side and he leaned forward over his knees, as he looked at Toyohisa. “Your soulmate?” His eyes were wide, locked on Toyohisa. “One of them is your soulmate? Which one?” He seemed a bit more excited than Toyohisa needed him to be right now. He should be troubled or at least not so cheerful or intrigued, because he needed advice and he definitely didn’t want to get it from Nobunaga. “That’s… Da shorter one.” Yoichi hummed, looking in the direction that the foreigners had their carriage, though they couldn’t be seen from where he and Toyohisa sat. “The shorter one. Hmm. So do you think you’ll like him?”

Toyohisa turned a bothered look toward him. “That’s not the problem. I think so, yes, but that’s not da problem. Were yew listening to what I said?” Yoichi pursed his lips, a wholly unimpressed look on his face. “I was, but I don’t think it’s that big of a problem. You can easily solve it.” Toyohisa’s scowl turned into a frown of confusion, and Yoichi sighed deeply. “Otoyo, you…” Yoichi got back on his feet with a shake of his head that sent his ponytail flying through the air. The end of it hit Toyohisa in the shoulder. “You should figure that out on your own.” Toyohisa growled at him, and Yoichi huffed, hands on his hips. “This _is_ your problem! That’s why it _should_ be your job to solve it.”

“Yoichi!” Toyohisa called after him when Yoichi was turning to leave, and Yoichi looked back at him again. “Don’t tell Nobu.” Yoichi was quiet for a few moments, then he smirked at him. “We’ll see.” He wandered off, Toyohisa scowling at his back. “Solving it. How am I supposed to solve it?” Particularly with the translation charms doing their job as they should.

*****

Toyohisa didn’t have a lot to do at the moment, and thinking about what Yoichi had said earlier only frustrated him, so instead he started thinking about what he was going to do next in terms of everything else. In particular, he needed to decide his next move regarding the fights, since fights was what he always resorted to before. Since fight was the only thing he really was good at. He needed to know where and who to fight next to do that.

He wandered while he thought, around the ruins of the castle and the elven village. As he did, the sun started to set, dyeing the world in colors he was still getting to know after the shift, and with it, an idea took form in his mind.

Toyohisa had passed them before, while they were talking or taking care of the horses and looking over their tools, but eventually he stopped by a wall, only later realizing that he had stopped where he could see the foreigners’ carriage.

His soulmate was strapping the horses to the carriage with an ease that told of years of experience at handling both horses and the equipment used for them, while the other one was arranging the cargo on the carriage, possibly making sure that they didn’t forget anything. They were in conversation and didn’t seem to take note of Toyohisa.

Eventually, he pulled himself away, stopped watching them, and headed for the elves’ houses. He had things to do, and before that, he was going to see if any of the elves were coming with him or not.

It was time to free the dwarves.


	9. Butch V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very delayed, I know. It's been spinning around in my head for months, too. Oops.

The cart rattled familiarly against the dirt road, at an easy pace that didn’t strain the horses too much at once. Butch leaned one hand against the wood, and leaned back over it to get closer to Sundance, who was sitting in the cart beside a box of cargo. “Sundance.” He made a motion with his head when Sundance looked past the brim of his hat. Sundance sighed but shifted closer to the driver’s seat, so his arm pressed against the wood.

“I want to try somethin’ out,” he said, and Sundance arched an eyebrow at him. “Go right ahead, then.”

Butch glanced over toward the Octobrists. They were without a doubt listening in.

 _“I was thinking I might sing,”_ he said, in Spanish. Sundance’s raised eyebrow was joined by the other. But he caught on quickly as always, and retorted in Spanish as well, while he observed Haruakira and the other Octobrist out of the corner of his eye. _That’s what you were thinking? That’s not exactly important. You’ll just end up doing it anyway, if you want to.”_

 _”Is that how I am?”_ Butch bared his teeth in a grin. _”Because you’re an idiot,”_ Sundance established. Butch laughed.

“What is it that is so amusing?” The one who asked was the other Octobrist. It only lasted for the fraction of a second, but Butch knew that he saw Haruakira send him a disapproving look. Reading people’s faces were not hard, and while Haruakira might consider himself a talented manipulator, Butch was better than that at reading people.

Haruakira did not like it when he wasn’t in control. And Butch and Sundance speaking Spanish unsettled him, because he did not understand the language.

 _Thank God for Argentina,_ Butch thought, and he had another reason to miss the days on their ranch. It had been a good couple years. Life as a rancher in Cholila had been some of the best years in his life, particularly considering he hadn’t thought that he would find much peace of mind after the deaths and arrests of so many of his friends.It had been fulfilling, but in the end, a law-abiding life was not allowed him.

“That I ain’t stoppable once I set my mind t’be a’doin’ somethin’,” he said, and he could see that that was a statement that didn’t seem to make Haruakira feel any easier. It wasn’t like Butch disliked the man, but he was so stuck in his ways and not open to compromise. Unrelenting and stubborn and with such intent to kill. Haruakira wanted them to do as he said. They didn’t want to be at his beck and call.

“That is amusing?” the other Octobrist asked, and Butch shrugged. “It’s all ‘bout context, lad.”

Then he stretched in his seat, and relaxed again. He hummed a few undeterminable notes, then decided that he might as well sing anyway, because he felt like it and they had a ways to go still. They were not pursued at the moment either.

“Well I was layin' 'round town just a'spendin' my time,  
Out of a job and not earnin' a dime  
When a feller steps up and he says, "I suppose  
You're a bronc' ridin' man by the looks of your clothes."

"You figgers me right. I’m a good one," I claims,  
"Do you happen to have any bad ones to tame?"  
He says that he has and a bad one to buck;  
An' for throwin' good riders he's had lots of luck."

Well it's oh that strawberry roan  
Oh that strawberry roan  
They say he’s a cayuse that’s never been rode  
The man that gets on him is bound to get throwed  
Get off that strawberry roan

Well I gets all het up and I ask what he pays  
To ride this old pony for a couple of days  
He offered me ten, I said, "I'm your man,  
A bronc never lived that I couldn't fan."

Well he says: "Get your saddle, I'll give you a chance"  
So I gets in the buckboard we drives to the ranch  
I stays 'ntil mornin' and right after chuck  
I steps out to see if this outlaw can buck

Well it's oh that strawberry roan  
Oh that strawberry roan  
They say he’s a cayuse that’s never been rode  
The man that gets on him is bound to get throwed  
You can’t stay on that strawberry roan”

He was happy to sing, as he had always liked music. Sundance sang along after picking up what song it was, and both Octobrists watched and listened with expressions that told of how strange they found the song about the unmanageable strawberry roan that bucked everyone that rode him off. The song made him miss the days in his youth when he raced horses with Matt (though thinking of horse races made his mind momentarily drift over the loss of one of his brothers, as he had died as a result of a horse race), and Sundance joining in reminded him of too many nights to count. He missed the West. He missed the time he was from. But times were already changing when he left the US, and there would be no place for a man like him, even if he had lived there beyond 1901.

Most of all, he missed when life was simple. He missed the times when he didn’t have to think about soulmates, other world’s wars, or being unable to get more tobacco or ammo. Those were the simple days. When everyday life was ranching, handling beef, butchering meat, robbing banks, stopping trains and fleeing posses.

“He sure is frog-walkin', he heaves a big sigh  
He only lacks wings, to be on the fly  
He turns his old belly right up to the sun  
He sure is a sun-fishin' son-of-a-gun

Well it's oh that strawberry roan  
It's oh that strawberry roan  
They say he’s a cayuse that’s never been rode  
The man that gets on him is bound to get throwed  
Get thrown by that strawberry roan

He's about the worst bucker I've seen on the range  
He'll turn on a nickel and give you some change  
And when he's a'buckin' he squeals like a shoot,  
I tell you that pony has sure got my goat.

I claims that no foolin' that outlaw can step,  
But I'm still in his middle and are buildin' a rep,  
He hits on all fours and he turns on his side,  
I don't see what keeps him from losin' his hide.

Well it's oh that strawberry roan  
It's oh that strawberry roan  
They say he’s a cayuse that’s never been rode  
The man that gets on him is bound to get throwed  
Get thrown by that strawberry roan

Well I loses my stirrup and also my hat,  
I'm clawin' at leather, as blind as a bat;  
With a phenomenal jump he goes up on high  
Leaves me sittin' on nothin' up there in the sky

Well I turns over twice and I comes back to earth  
An' I lights into cussin' the day of his birth  
An' I knows there’s ponies I ain’t able to ride,  
There's some of them left, they haven't all died

I'll bet all my money, the man ain't alive  
That can stay with Old Strawberry  
When he makes his high dive.

Well it's oh that strawberry roan  
It's oh that strawberry roan  
They say he’s a cayuse that’s never been rode  
The man that gets on him is bound to get throwed  
Get throwed by that strawberry roan”

The good old days, the place where he belonged the most, are long gone and would never return. He missed that, but the past was the past and they couldn’t return to it. Yesterday is gone, just as much as tomorrow might never come.

As the last “Oh that strawberry roan…” faded into the cooling evening air, Butch started to keep an eye out for a place to make camp for the night. They were returning to the Octobrist headquarters, but they were not in such a rush that the horses had to be pushed, nor did they have to ride through the night as well.

He felt old, he realized. Forty-three years, he should have reached by now, and it was longer than he had expected to live. He still had much energy of a younger man, but sometimes he really did remember that it was a long time ago that he really was a young man, setting out into the world in search for adventure and some extra dollar or two for his poor family. He never did intend to go down the path of an outlaw. But once you’re there, the lawmen won’t ever forget, and they’ll never stop chasing you. Even the time in Argentina was ruined because Pinkertons wouldn’t give up their hunt for people that most people didn’t spare a thought.

Ah, wasn’t that a funny thought. He had thought that they wouldn’t chase him all the way to the South Americas. He had been wrong. Then wouldn’t it make sense if they somehow managed to chase him all the way into another world, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * Butch, Sundance, and Sundance’s wife Etta Place lived in Argentina for several years, and they owned a ranch together in Cholila. The house that they lived in still stands, and some of the buildings were built by the two cowboys.
> 

>   * The song is called _[Strawberry Roan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_yfmKMK4mo)_ , and was technically first published in 1915 as a poem but ssh, let me have this moment of imagining the Octobrists’ faces when hearing those lyrics. (Also, I really like it so I just wanted to add it. I’ll be as accurate as I can on the Butch info as always.) The particular lyrics I used are a mix between the lyrics of two different versions of the song.
> 

>   * Matt is the outlaw Matt Warner. The two met in Telluride in 1889, and partnered up racing Matt’s horse Betty against other people’s horses in the southwestern Colorado area. They were also joined by Tom McCarty after a while. They won pretty much all the time and if I can recall correctly, Butch was often the jockey.
> 

>   * Butch’s second younger brother, Arthur, died on July 7, 1890. He participated in a Fourth of July race when his horse stumbled and fell, and rolled over on Arthur. This also happened in Telluride, after Butch had already skipped town after robbing the bank together with Matt and Tom. (That robbery was what turned him into a full-fledged outlaw, rather than just a cowboy.) Arthur was buried before the family was notified, as sending messages took time, so they were unable to attend the funeral.
> 

>   * The Pinkertons intercepted letters from Sundance to his sister and learned that they were in Argentina in 1903, and they contacted Argentinian police. Not much came out of it at the time, but when robberies in a similar fashion to Butch’s MO started happening in the vicinity of Cholila, Butch and Sundance were (likely wrongfully) suspected and eventually were meant to be arrested in 1905. However, they were warned by friends within the law enforcement, and managed to run away before that happened. After that, they were forced to go back to a life of crime.
> 



	10. Toyohisa V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is long overdue. Again. orz I have added in the tags that this gets very slowly updated, because I can't predict the pace I'll be updating at. Hopefully it'll go a little easier once the main boys are back to interacting with each other, which I intend to get them to do soon. Timeskips and all that. This chapter starts with a small one, for example.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Nobunaga said. He rubbed at his stubble, a thoughtful look on his face and his eye trained on Toyohisa. Toyohisa looked up from his alcohol and his soup, but didn’t stop shoveling more into his mouth. He did make a grunt in acknowledgement though, and Nobunaga continued. “Toyo, how did you get someone like that as soulmate? He’s got way too intelligent and observant eyes for you to be a match.”

“Da hell’s that supposed’a mean!?” Toyohisa shouted, spitting out both horse meat and booze as his anger flared.

“That you’re stupid, you damn boonie brat! It wouldn’t surprise me if you already asked him to marry you!” Seriously, Nobunaga could imagine him being that impulsive.  
“I didn’t do that,” Toyohisa protested. Then he added without pause, before he was able to stop himself, “yet.”  
“Oh yeah, _yet._ ” Nobunaga crossed his arms, looking down at the southern samurai. “That’s great. You’re just bursting to ask him, aren’t you?”  
“Not right now.”

Nobunaga thought that Toyohisa sounded unusually glum. He had even paused in stuffing his face for a moment. His budding tantrum had quieted down way too fast, too. Nobunaga watched him for a while, and after a minute or two Toyohisa returned to drinking, but he didn’t continue eating yet. “Alright,” Nobunaga finally said, giving in with a deep sigh. “What’s up with you?”  
“Nothing’s up,” Toyohisa said. He wasn’t very convincing. Nobunaga wasn’t convinced at all. In his mind, Toyohisa cursed Yoichi and his blabbering mouth. Could he not keep anything a secret?

“Otoyo-donooo,” Yoichi, stumbling and slurring and drunk, slumped an arm around Toyohisa, and he leaned against him heavily. “Are you ztill hung up in ‘im not suzpeakin’ our language?”  
Toyohisa looked away from them both.  
“That’s exactly it, huh. It’s easy to fix.”  
“Don’t just repeat what _he_ said!” Toyohisa jabbed a liquor-sticky finger at Yoichi as he glared up at Nobunaga. “Say somethin’ useful!”  
“It’s very useful. You just need to use that bean sized brain of yours to figure it out on your own. Yoichi, stop muttering things nobody can understand.” The last, Nobunaga directed at the archer, who had indeed continued talking, but to himself and with such a drunken slur in his voice that neither Toyohisa nor Nobunaga could understand more than a word here and there. “Hey!” Nobunaga shouted at the elves. “Somebody put this damn drunk to bed before he pukes all over someone!” Of course, that meant that Yoichi puked all over poor Shara, but that wasn’t Nobunaga’s problem. Instead, Nobunaga turned back to Toyohisa. “Even if you don’t figure it out, he will. Unlike you, he’s actually smart.”

Toyohisa growled, grabbed his bowl that had been refilled with soup, and drank it all like it was alcohol. “You’re such a child,” Nobunaga said to him. Toyohisa growled again, darker, deeper, and louder.

“What is this soulmate thing you’re talking about?” one of the dwarves that had overheard them asked. Toyohisa swallowed hard and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Soulmates’re soulmates,” he said matter-of-factly. Nobunaga let out another tired sigh of frustration. “That’s one hell of an explanation. Soulmates are two people sharing the same soul,” He turned away from Toyohisa to face the dwarves that had asked about it. “Tsukiyomi-no-Mikoto, the moon god, created the system in an attempt to appease his angered wife, the sun goddess Amaterasu-oomikami. It didn’t really succeed but we’ve had soulmates for thousands of years. Before we meet our soulmate, we can’t see the color that their eyes are in anything, so the first thing that color that we ever see is their eyes, like bright lights beckoning us toward them. It’s impossible to resist...”

Both the dwarves and Toyohisa frowned at the wistful tone in the old man’s face, and the expression on his face that reflected the tone. Nobunaga eventually noticed all the gazes on him, and snapped out of it. “What?”

“Nobu,” Toyohisa stretched out the man’s name a bit. “Why’re yew soundin’ like that?”  
“Was it impossible for you?” a dwarf asked.  
“And anyway, it’s not impossible,” Toyohisa added. Nobunaga puffed up his cheeks angrily. “I just miss my soulmate, alright?” he whined. It had been great finding his soulmate after years of marriage. Man, he missed Ranmaru. Ranmaru wouldn’t cause this much trouble.

“Still not impossible,” Toyohisa remarked, clearly not respecting Nobunaga’s longing for his other half. Toyohisa always caused trouble. Nobunaga felt sorry for that poor foreigner. He’d be a pain in the ass to have as a soulmate. “Why’s it not impossible? Because of the language barrier? Just don’t lose your translation charms and there won’t be a problem.”  
“Yew won’t get it.”  
This obstinate little brat. Just saying he won’t get it and not even trying to pretend to look like he wanted to explain himself. “I guess I don’t! Because I don’t get how idiots think!”

Predictably, Toyohisa’s temper flared once again. Man it was easy to rile this kid up.

“So why is it impossible? Huh? Huh? Are you scared of him? Because he’s a foreigner? That’s pitiful, Toyohisa, to be scared just because he’s different from you? Or is it because he’s so much smarter than you? Is it really just because he doesn’t speak Japanese? Man, you’re pathetic, Otoyo, you Shimazu really are not as much as you say huuuh!”

Yeah, it was incredibly easy to rile Toyohisa up; the guy was ready to murder Nobunaga for his insults, particularly the one directed toward his clan.  
Among all of Toyohisa’s curses and blade-waving though, Nobunaga reached enlightenment.  
Well, he learned of one major obstacle, the one that probably was the biggest reason behind Toyohisa claiming that it wasn’t actually impossible to resist the bond.

“So it’s _him_ who doesn’t want you, not you who don’t want him.”

Toyohisa froze at the words, and lowered his sword. He clenched it tightly in his hand.

“He’s not really interested in things like soulmates or relationships.” The language was an issue, but the biggest issue was the other man’s lack of willingness— and Toyohisa would never force anyone into doing something like that against their will. Forcing oneself upon somebody else was what utter scum did, people with no shred of honor in them.

“Aah, I see. That’s the issue. Well, don’t rush it. You might get there some day.” Toyohisa scowled at Nobunaga’s words, and he glowered at the demon king. As if it was that easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The main reason for this chapter being delayed is the mythology behind the soulmate system. I'll have to need to make up several different stories that suits country, culture, and religion, so that's fun. All the Japanese characters would probably know somewhat different stories too, considering localization and era.


End file.
